


A Marked Man

by learningthetrees



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: F/M, Hurt, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6452995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose’s guilt only intensified each time something happened to him. He may have carried the pain on his body, but she carried it in her soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Marked Man

**Author's Note:**

> Anon on tumblr asked for hurt!Silas, and I missed writing Rose, so this was the result.

Silas had accumulated scars.

For someone who had been very lucky avoiding grave injury for most of his life, his body certainly didn’t show it. His skin had become marked, white lines stretching across his torso, dark scar tissue dotting his arms. Rose had watched the lines and bruises and blemishes bloom across his skin, marring what had once been so untouched. In fact, it seemed there was a new one nearly every day — another mark.

That night, Silas sat on the edge of the bed and gingerly tugged his shirt over his head, revealing a splotchy new bruise across his side. Mottled purple and red, it had been the result of being thrown from the rambunctious filly he was trying to tame.

Rose sat beside him, a tender finger brushing lightly against the bruise. She felt Silas’s body tense beneath her touch, but he didn’t say anything. She could tell, though, by the stiffness in the way he carried himself and uneasy way he held his arm out from his side, he was hurting.

“Always hurt, aren’t you?” Rose said.

He glanced over at her, an eyebrow lifted in that expression she had come to associate only with him. “Me?” He smirked. “Never.”

“Then how do you explain this?” She held her palm over the new bruise, taking care not to touch it.

“Hmm,” Silas grunted. “That’s nothing.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rose traced her finger along a thin white line that traversed his shoulder and down onto his chest — proof of his encounter with a length of chicken wire last spring. “And this?”

“Just a scratch.” The wire had bit into his skin; he had lost a lot of blood.

“And…” Rose touched a finger to the round scar on his shoulder, the memory of a bullet from the day they’d first met. “This.” Her voice was a murmur as she remembered the day in vivid bursts of detail. The sound of ceaseless gunfire, the smell of burning wheat and blood, the looks in the eyes of the dead.

She pulled her hand away. “Do you ever regret it?” she asked in a small voice.

Silas was flippant. “What, getting shot?” He looked sideways at her with mirth in his eyes, but she didn’t smile.

“You know what I mean.” When she looked at him like this, scarred and bruised, she couldn’t help but feel that each mark was because of her. That every injury he’d sustained was because he’d decided to remain her with her. That if he had gone on his way and drifted along as he always had, he might have stayed out of harm’s way. That even his intention to save her that very first day was the reason he’d been shot. Rose’s guilt only intensified each time something happened to him. He may have carried the pain on his body, but she carried it in her soul.

“Rose.” She turned to look at him, and suddenly, he wasn’t smiling either. “I don’t regret anything.” He took her hand in his, guiding it to the bullet hole on his shoulder. “Scars remind us we’re alive. I’m alive — now more than ever.” Then he touched her fingertips to his lips, a feather of a kiss. He relinquished her hand as she slid closer, pressing her lips to his. Rose slid an arm around his waist to draw him closer, eliciting a hiss when she accidentally pressed against his fresh bruise.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, but he was already kissing her again.

He paused for a moment, his mouth a hair’s breadth from hers. “Don’t be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


End file.
